Chocolat Bonnat, the French, family-run chocolate label, is on its sixth generation of chocolatiers. It started 130 years ago. Its wrappers are beautifully colourful – a full spectrum of the bars would make a lovely present – and they somehow look just like chocolate bars should.
It is possibly the chocolate most often recommended to me. Readers from around the world send me pictures of it, saying, ‘Have you tried this? It’s amazing.’ I’ve recommended it before, –and it’s worth recommending but here’s a secret: I don’t love-love it. The most recent bar I tried, the 65% Grand’Anse from Haiti, £6.95/100g, caused an outburst of, ‘Oh, wow this is amazing,’ in my testers. No hesitations from them. And yet I thought it was a little unyielding, almost waxy. The taste, when it did reveal itself, was indeed very good. But it felt unfriendly.
Sometimes you have to concede that it really is you, when every other person thinks differently. Which is why I love chocolate, as there’s something for everyone. Do try it and let me know what you think.
To my shame – sometimes the inner child in me comes out and the grownup chocolate correspondent is pushed into the broom cupboard – what I have really been enjoying this week is something very sweet. Even my children thought they were too much. And yet, what can I say? Perhaps I needed sugary comfort. Sam Joseph’s Milk chocolate popcorn caramel clusters, £7.50/120g, are 37% cocoa milk chocolate smothering popcorn and caramel. (Plain and blond chocolate versions are also available – I can’t even begin to imagine how sweet the latter is.) Mercifully, the clusters are small – because these are wonderfully addictive.
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